RORY SALAZAR | Finance | Contact
A future millionaire has today spent the morning delightfully imagining what compound interest would do for his investment portfolio had he started to invest 30 years ago.
Rick O’Shea (34), a white collar professional who archaically still works from an office – which is a building used as a place where professionals congregate to work towards common corporate goals – has invested $16,000 into the stock market over the past 16 months.
In that time, O’Shea diligently researched investment strategies and discovered the eighth wonder of the world, compound interest. That magical beast which compounds money at an accelerated rate over time, producing interest on interest, money making money making money making money daily, weekly, annually.
In the grip of the wonderful dream, O’Shea explained to The Advocate that “if I invested my $16k back in 1992, and I was putting in a grand a month like I do now, reinvesting the dividends, then over 30 years…” he took out his phone and input the calculations into the Moneysmart.gov.au compound interest calculator with a determined look, “…at an annual interest rate of, what, let’s say conservatively 5% a year, that’s…”
The powerful phone instantaneously calculated the results, including the amount of interest accrued.
“Fuck me!” exclaimed O’Shea, his eye glasses fogging up as his internal body temperature exploded hotly.
“I’d have $903,743 in my portfolio!”
The man showed our reporter the phone’s results, confirming the findings.
Of the $903k, The Advocate can report that $527k was the interest accrued, illustrating the whimsical nature of compounding interest over a 30 year time horizon.
“I could retire on that,” he said.
Wanting to heighten the man’s reverie, our reporter asked O’Shea to run the numbers again, only this time to double his initial investment amount for the year 1992.
“OMG,” he yelled as he punched in the bigger amounts. “Holy shit! I’m a millionaire!”
A sombre tranquillity overcame the man, who turned to our reporter with tears in his eyes.
“I should’ve started investing 30 years ago.”
